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China's Xi arrives at Lima to attend APEC and open Pacific Megaport

The Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to arrive in Lima, Peru, on Thursday. He will begin a diplomatic blitz of a week in Latin America, inaugurating the Chancay Deep-Water Port, Beijing's largest infrastructure investment in Latin America.

Xi will attend the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Lima, and then next week the summit of the Group of 20 in Rio de Janeiro. Xi is also planning to make state visits in Peru and Brazil. Both countries are major suppliers of metal ores and soybeans that support key Chinese industries such as electric vehicles and pork. They will also ensure food security for China's 1.4 billion population.

Xi will be in Lima to attend the inauguration of the Chancay Port, alongside Peruvian President Dina Boluarte. Cosco Shipping Ports, the China-controlled megaport located on Peru’s Pacific Coast, has already attracted $1.3 billion of Chinese investment.

"We must jointly build and well manage the Chancay Port, making 'from Chancay-Shanghai' a prosperous way to promote the joint development between China and Latin America, as well as China and Peru," Xi wrote on Thursday in an opinion piece published in the official newspaper El Peruano.

The port's inauguration comes as Beijing looks to tap further into the resource-rich Latin American area, amid tensions in trade with Europe and worries about future tariffs by the incoming Trump Administration.

Washington has been alarmed by China's biggest investment in a Latin American Port, Chancay. General Laura Richardson, former U.S. Southern Command chief, warned earlier this month before retiring that Chancay could be used by the Chinese military's navy and for intelligence-gathering.

The U.S. concerns about Chancay are part of a larger, decades-long change in the region that is known as Washington's backyard. China has overtaken the United States and become the biggest trading partner for countries such as Peru.

In an editorial published Monday, China's state-backed Global Times said that the port is a "bridge between practical cooperation between China & Latin America and by no means is a tool for Geopolitical Competition", calling U.S. allegations of the port's possible military use "smears". (Reporting from Eduardo Baptista in Lima and Marco Aquino, with additional reporting by Zhang Yukun at Beijing; editing by Alistair Bell).

(source: Reuters)